Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
Neuroimage. 2011 Jul 15;57(2):634-41. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.04.032. Epub 2011 Apr 30.
In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we examined developmental changes in the brain regions involved in reactions to unfair allocations. Previous studies on adults suggested that reactions to unfairness are not only affected by the distribution itself but also by the ascribed intentionality of the proposer. In the current study, we employed the mini Ultimatum Game (Falk, Fehr, & Fischbacher, 2003) to examine responder behavior to unfair offers of varying degrees of intentionality. Sixty-eight participants from four age groups (10-, 13-, 15-, and 20-year-olds) carried out the task while fMRI data were acquired. Participants of all ages showed activation in the bilateral insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) during rejection of unintentional but acceptance of intentional unfair offers. Rejection of unintentional unfair offers further involved increasing activation with age in the temporoparietal junction and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. These findings provide evidence for an early developing insula-dACC network involved in detecting personal norm-violations and gradually increasing involvement of temporal and prefrontal brain regions related to intentionality considerations in social reasoning. The results are discussed in light of recent findings on the development of the adolescent social brain network.
在这项功能磁共振成像研究中，我们研究了参与不公平分配反应的大脑区域的发育变化。先前的成人研究表明，对不公平的反应不仅受分配本身的影响，还受提议者归因的意图的影响。在目前的研究中，我们采用了迷你最后通牒博弈（Falk、Fehr 和 Fischbacher，2003）来研究不同意图程度的不公平提议对反应者行为的影响。来自四个年龄组（10 岁、13 岁、15 岁和 20 岁）的 68 名参与者在进行 fMRI 数据采集的同时完成了任务。所有年龄段的参与者在拒绝非故意但接受故意不公平的提议时，双侧脑岛和背侧前扣带皮层（dACC）都有激活。拒绝非故意的不公平提议还涉及到随着年龄的增长，颞顶联合区和背外侧前额叶皮层的激活增加。这些发现为涉及检测个人规范违反的早期发育的脑岛-前扣带皮层网络提供了证据，并逐渐增加了与社会推理中意图考虑相关的颞叶和前额叶脑区的参与。该结果与青少年社会大脑网络发育的最新发现进行了讨论。
